UDO Audio’s latest release is DMNO, a bi-timbral 8-voice poly. DMNO is a cutting-edge synth, sporting FPGA digital oscillators, a binaural signal path and DSP effects engine.
Now the company has released DMNO ON, the desktop version of their DMNO synthesizer, combining two independent hybrid synth engines in an 8-voice, 2-part multitimbral instrument.
Each engine uses FPGA-powered digital oscillators, alongside analog signal processing and UDO’s Dynamic Multi-Core Stereo VCF.
A central feature is the Play Modes system, which can reconfigure how the two synth engines interact, from conventional splits and layers to more unusual configurations including Random, Chaos and Cascade.
The desktop instrument can also be expanded with optional ONM control modules, for additional hands-on synthesis and effects control.
Features:
8-voice polyphony
2-part multitimbral architecture
Two independent complete synth engines
FPGA-powered digital oscillators
Binaural mode with four voices
Per-voice Dynamic Multi-Core Stereo VCF
Filter configurations including series, parallel and stereo
Eight selectable Play Modes
Single, Dual and Split configurations
Random, Chaos and Cascade Play Modes
Multi-mode arpeggiator with Smart Hold
Digital delay, reverb, EQ, distortion and chorus
External audio input with variable-gain preamp
Audio-input gate generator and envelope follower
CV/Gate connectivity
24-bit USB 2-in/2-out audio interface
High-contrast VFD display
Optional ONM-1 Synth Control and ONM-2 FX Control
DMNO ON is expected to be available soon, priced at $2,850.
Synthesist and developer Stephen McLeod shared this video, demonstrating how he got the new Elektron Outbox 8 to work with the unsupported OctaTrack.
McLeod’s unofficial firmware mod is a Claude ‘vibe coded’ change, part of the sudden explosion of firmware mods and audio plugins that are being enabled by LLM coding tools.
This trend is raising some concerns, but it’s also fueling the rise of alternative firmware options that add new features and functionality to existing gear.
View the video and share your thoughts on this OctraTrack Outbox 8 mod in the comments!
Laboratory 0’s BLOT is an experimental software synthesizer that explores modal synthesis as an approach to electronic sound generation.
BLOT is played by shaping matter instead of turning knobs: the geometry of a lump on screen is the patch.
Every piece of the lump is a modal resonator, eight damped oscillators tuned by its size. Smaller pieces ring higher, and sizes settle on just-intonation ratios of the MIDI root. How far apart the modes spread, how bright they are and how long they ring follow the piece’s shape and heat. They are excited by a slow breathing noise, by strikes, by friction as you sweep over the matter, and, when it runs hot, by droplets: short tones above the ringing that rise as they burst.
Pull out a tendril and it becomes a plucked waveguide string, pitched by its length. Press in a dent and it becomes a formant filter, a mouth whose position sets the vowel. Cut a piece and its modes split into two pitches. Pieces that come close ring-modulate each other, and pieces that meet fuse back into one.
Rubbing heats the matter: the modes stretch and each piece’s drive saturates. Pushed harder, a 4× oversampled multiband saturator with a feedback comb tuned to the root takes over from clipping. Memory, an eight-line feedback delay network, holds what the matter has played. MIDI notes move the root and strike every piece. Two engines play the same matter: default stays clean until the matter is rubbed or overloaded, while intense heats and drives it with every cut and strike, and makes hot pieces crackle. “Pause” freezes the matter in place while it keeps sounding.
BLOT is available now from Laboratory 0 as a free download.
